Duran drummer tells Britney to beat it for her own good

February 20, 2008 11:00pm

DURAN Duran drummer Roger Taylor left the supergroup in the mid-'80s to escape the pressure of being a public figure and says troubled popstar Britney Spears should do herself a favour and disappear for a while.

Roger "did his own thing" for 15 years before rejoining with his former bandmates. He told QConfidential that success has its downside and he had no regrets about walking away from Duran Duran in 1985.

"I wasn't enjoying the life of touring, travelling, being a public figure and the adulation. It was a lot to handle," Roger said.

"You look at Britney Spears, trapped in the glamour and stuck in the limelight. She needs to just disappear for a while and get her life on track.

"I disappeared to get my life on track with the idea of one day returning again."

Duran Duran are the retro headline act at the V Festival on the Gold Coast on March 30 and Roger said this trip Down Under will be vastly different from their record flogging promotional and touring trips in the 1980s.

"Australia was one of the first places we broke internationally and because of that we had to fly there to play and appear on Countdown and things," Roger said. "The one thing I remember about Countdown was Molly's hat.

"Then it was economy flights, sharing hotel rooms and six-hour stopovers in Kuala Lumpur.

"This time we have our own rooms and business class."

As for their epic music videos, which include the classic Girls On Film, he says they thought they might be played for a year or so at the time.

"Girls On Film was produced to capture middle-America guys, who were in bars all day watching video clips," he said. "It's amazing that more than 20 years on they're still playing the song on the radio and MTV."

Courtesy Courier Mail